NA– USEATED BY TRITE METAPHORS about financial health? Welcome to the Guardian readers’ ward, where, at least for today, Turkey is not the sick man of Europe. Greece is.
By IAN TRAYNOR [The Guardian] – Greece was diagnosed as critically insolvent a year ago. It was placed in the eurozone’s intensive care ward, treated with an infusion of €110bn and put on a crash diet to thin its bloated state sector. But 12 months on, the patient is getting sicker.
The budget deficit, at 10.5%, is 1.1% more than projected. A promised €50bn privatisation programme is stalling. Tax collection is notional. Recession is deepening. The national debt has grown to €340bn – 18 months of Greek GDP. The rates Athens has to pay to borrow on the bond markets are off the affordability scale. The prospect is of a long vicious circle of recession and deflation that offers no escape from the debt trap.
If this is the cure, the Greeks are telling their eurozone peers, we prefer to take our chances with the disease.
The doctors in Berlin take a dim view of that.
Continued at The Guardian | More Chronicle & Notices.
